# If there was ever a story where we're only getting one side, this is it **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 26, 2015, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772 "2015-10-26T04:55:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/1 "2015-10-26T04:55:49Z")
This was posted on a thread on a mostly-women board I post on, and I know I’m going to kick up a poostorm by saying that not only is a tiny percentage of the article about this woman’s messy divorce, we’re only getting her side of it. > **[Corrupt justice: what happens when judges' bias taints a case?](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/18/judge-bias-corrupts-court-cases)** > > Divorced Long Island mother Margaret Besen tells her five-year struggle to get justice, just one story in the hundreds of judicial transgressions revealed in a Guardian and Contently Foundation for Investigative Reporting a collaboration Among other things, how must her kids feel, seeing their family’s dirty laundry hung out for all to see? 😕 :rolleyes: That said, judicial corruption is a big deal and can destroy lives. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/2 "2015-10-26T06:18:55Z")
For a mother to lose custody entirely some serious shit must have gone down which does not appear to be referenced in the story. I have a feeling the Judge told her to do X, Y and Z somewhere early in this process and she blew him off or did not listen and then went after him personally for bias. Neither was apparently a winning strategy. From the looks of things below she’s also paying ultimate hardball. It sounds like her allegations are being determined to be false. This will piss a Judge off. > [@](#): > > Margaret won a court order of protection barring Stuart from contact with her children for a year. But when Kent issued his final decree less than six weeks later, he awarded Stuart full custody, while Margaret was allowed only supervised visits. And he ordered Margaret to pay back half the cost of her nursing degree and to sell her diamond engagement ring and split the proceeds with Stuart. The judge also reversed the support arrangements. While Stuart would pay $1,500 a month in maintenance to Margaret, she now owed Stuart $153.90 a week for the children, even though she was earning about $13,000 a year as a part-time aide in an assisted-living facility. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/3 "2015-10-26T07:41:06Z")
As you say. In family law matters the financial and emotional stakes are so high that people will just say anything. Without hearing both sides, who knows? There’s something a bit desperate in the story’s implication of corruption in relation to the family house being sold. The allegation is that the wife of the judge may be the realtor acting in the sale of the family home, which could lead to a situation where the judge obtains a benefit from his order that the home be sold. But there seems to be no suggestion that the wife didn’t want the family home sold, and that is a normal thing IME. So what difference does it make? ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/4 "2015-10-26T07:50:44Z")
I’m curious about your schtick actually **nearwildheaven**. You’re a self-professed single woman (sans kids) who for some reason hangs out on single mum and similar boards to get data to post to THIS page. What’s your interest? Why do you care? Why do you have such a constant investment in getting opinions from stuff you have no personal investment? ?? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/5 "2015-10-26T17:15:04Z")
> [@astro](#): > > For a mother to lose custody entirely some serious shit must have gone down which does not appear to be referenced in the story. I have a feeling the Judge told her to do X, Y and Z somewhere early in this process and she blew him off or did not listen and then went after him personally for bias. Neither was apparently a winning strategy. > > From the looks of things below she’s also paying ultimate hardball. It sounds like her allegations are being determined to be false. This will piss a Judge off. And her teenage children appear to want nothing to do with her. THAT’S a big waving red flag. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/6 "2015-10-26T17:16:19Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > I’m curious about your schtick actually **nearwildheaven**. You’re a self-professed single woman (sans kids) who for some reason hangs out on single mum and similar boards to get data to post to THIS page. What’s your interest? Why do you care? Why do you have such a constant investment in getting opinions from stuff you have no personal investment? > > ?? Because people come here all the time wanting opinions on A or B, that’s why. I stopped by that board on the way here and expected to be flamed, and to my surprise, I wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/7 "2015-10-26T19:44:02Z")
Decades ago my aunt lost custody of her daughter in a divorce. It was quite rare for that to happen in those days, and everyone immediately presumed her husband had bought off the judge. Years later my now grown up cousin revealed that she had been horribly abused by my aunt, a fact that was kept confidential in the records, and not known by anyone in our family. I’m not saying this is the same, only that I’ve learned there’s usually more to a divorce than meets the eye. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/8 "2015-10-26T22:11:41Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Decades ago my aunt lost custody of her daughter in a divorce. It was quite rare for that to happen in those days, and everyone immediately presumed her husband had bought off the judge. > > Years later my now grown up cousin revealed that she had been horribly abused by my aunt, a fact that was kept confidential in the records, and not known by anyone in our family. > > I’m not saying this is the same, only that I’ve learned there’s usually more to a divorce than meets the eye. In the late 1990s, I worked with a woman whose first husband was suing for custody of their two children. She told everyone that he was doing this so he wouldn’t have to pay child support any more (that logic has never made sense to me for a multitude of reasons) and one day, some of us were in the break room talking about it, and I said, “You know, we’re only getting her side of the story. I wonder if there’s something going on that we don’t know about” and ZOMG did I ever get torn a new one! Custody was awarded to the ex-husband, and she got supervised visitation. That did not go over well with us at the clinic in general. A few years ago, I remembered that case, and also that the county where she lived put their court records online - and ZOMGWTFBBQ did I get an eyeful! First thing I noticed was that her marriage with her second husband, with whom she had two kids were babies when I worked with her, had ended in divorce ca. 2010, after she’d filed 3 times and there had been numerous protection orders in the meantime, AND it turned out that ex #1 had sued for and won custody because ex #2 had physically abused his stepchildren. ☹ This was not a he said/she said thing, either; there was medical evidence backing this up. The supervised visitation was because their stepfather was not allowed to see his stepkids, and the court felt that she could not be trusted to keep them away from him. Yup - more to the story. ETA: In case you hadn’t figured out, she spoke highly of her second husband, and he was also well regarded by the other co-workers. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/9 "2015-10-26T22:56:08Z")
I don’t see any reason to believe anything at all in the article. Her story may be true or she may be getting what she deserves. Kind of pointless to speculate. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/10 "2015-10-26T22:59:47Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I don’t see any reason to believe anything at all in the article. Her story may be true or she may be getting what she deserves. Kind of pointless to speculate. That’s how I felt. Chances are, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Thing is, some of the people on the website where I got that link are believing everything she says, hook, line, and sinker. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-there-was-ever-a-story-where-were-only-getting-one-side-this-is-it/735772/11 "2015-10-26T23:15:34Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Thing is, some of the people on the website where I got that link are believing everything she says, hook, line, and sinker. Gee, it’s hard to imagine that could happen anywhere, let alone on the internet!